


I is for Imposter Syndrome

by antonomasia09



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s09e13 Ripple Effect, Gen, Introspection, statistics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 02:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12471796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonomasia09/pseuds/antonomasia09
Summary: After the events of "Ripple Effect," Sam tries to make sense of what they've learned.





	I is for Imposter Syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Quantum Mirror Alphabet Soup](https://fignewton.dreamwidth.org/278194.html%22). The term "imposter syndrome" is taken somewhat more literally than its normal meaning.

After the last team had been sent home, and Kvasir had finished packing up his Asgard energy weapon, Sam headed to her lab to do some statistical analysis.

Of the seventeen SG-1’s that were allowed through the gate, eleven had a Sam Carter (twelve if you counted the one where she was temporarily on maternity leave). Thirteen had a Daniel Jackson, ten had a Teal’c, and fifteen had a Cameron Mitchell.

Among the fifty-three teams turned back, there was at least one Vala Mal Doran, two Lt. Elliots, one Robert Rothman, one Sha’re (Daniel wasn’t in the gateroom when her voice came over the radio, and that’s probably for the best), three Jonas Quinns, and two Jack O’Neills.

More than half of the seventy SG-1’s consisted of some combination of three or more members (past or present) of her own team. There was no universe in which SG-1 did not consist of at least one of them.

Of course, Sam knew better than to trust the statistical significance of less than a hundred data points, given the infinite possibilities that existed. Still, looking at her computer screen, she couldn’t help feeling that the fates of those infinite Earths rested on the shoulders of less than ten people. 

Daniel would agree with her, she knew; he still felt survivor’s guilt from his first encounter with the quantum mirror. Teal’c would not. Sam envied his confidence.

But back to the math. Sam was an astronaut in five alternate realities, a professor of astrophysics in two, and, bizarrely, a deep-sea diver in one. Teal’c, ever constant, was a former first prime of Apophis or Ba’al or Cronus, but he always turned on the Goa’uld in the hopes of freeing his people. Mitchell’s rank varied, but he was USAF in every reality. Daniel was always an archaeologist/anthropologist/linguist, whose career had had varying amounts of success. She was pretty sure the laughingstock-of-the-archaeological-community versions of him had actively avoided the best-selling author one.

The Stargate program was public knowledge in the universes of nearly half of the teams that had come through the gate. It seemed that people reacted to the news better when they weren’t under imminent threat of attack, but in no reality had there been the riots in the streets that Sam’s commanding officers predicted.

One alternate SG-1 had never encountered the Goa’uld. Six hadn’t encountered the Ori, and now, they never would.

Sam paused and let the data she’d entered so far compile. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was doing this instead of getting sleep like the general had ordered. Maybe it was just that she wanted to see the look on Mitchell’s face when she told him how many realities there were in which he was married to Dr. Lam. Maybe it was that she, alone, out of seventy different versions of herself, could.

There was also the comfort of seeing physical evidence of the fact that there were so many other paths they could have taken throughout the years that did not lead to Earth’s destruction. Ever since her encounter with her alternate self from the quantum mirror, the question had nagged at the back of her mind. _What if this is the choice I make that sets in motion the end of the world? What if, one day, I have to beg another Sam Carter for help because I wasn’t good enough?_

It wasn’t the sort of thing an Air Force officer should be thinking about. She had a responsibility to her team and her country (and her planet) to be able to make snap decisions, no second-guessing. Sam wouldn’t trade her scientific knowledge for anything, but sometimes, she thought it would be easier to live in the world if she didn’t regularly peer behind the curtain to examine the universe’s inner workings.

The program beeped to tell her it was done running. Sam shook her head to clear it. No more dwelling on what might be. This was her reality, where she belonged, and she would deal with the consequences of her choices. 

She printed out a few of the more amusing graphs for herself and her teammates - Teal’c was going to love the pie chart of what pie was being served at the commissary tomorrow in seventy different universes - and then shut her computer down for the night.

Tomorrow, she would go through the information she’d generated, and see if there were any suggestions she could make to the general regarding strategies against the Ori, or security measures for the base. Tonight, though, she was going to go home and think about the things that made her universe so special.


End file.
